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Like she has so many times before, Ansley Bowman turned to golf when she needed it most.

She was fresh to St. Johns County, having just moved from Atlanta, and even more foreign to Bartram Trail High School.

Not only did she start school with only her twin sister, Blakeley, beside her, but the very idea of going to class was something Bowman simply wasn’t used to.

“It was a lot harder than I thought,” said Bowman, TheSt. Augustine Record Girls Golfer of the Year. “Once I got into the Tom Burnett Academy at St. Johns it helped. I started to finally feel comfortable here.”

Bowman’s freshman year at Bartram started out as a challenge. She and her sister were home-schooled back in Atlanta so they could focus on athletics. So when they arrived in Florida, there was more to take in than just new surroundings.

Bowman said she wasn’t sure how long it would take to make friends, or even if she remembered how to. The only thing she was certain of was that golf would be there to make the transition smoother.

Golf is not a game many people take to at an early age. It requires patience, coaching and persistence. It’s not a good place to look if you’re into instant gratification.

But Bowman was different.

The sport was her version of day care. When she was 9 years old, her mother, Sandy, conceded she could have her first cell phone.

“I needed a way to let her know I wanted to come home from the (driving) range,” she said.

Bowman was a mainstay at the Hamilton Mill Golf Club in Dacula, Ga. where she lived. She would head up to the course at around 1:30 p.m. and her mom wouldn’t hear the phone ring until the sun was setting and her determined daughter could no longer see her drive fade away into the darkening sky.

“I don’t know why I liked it so much,” Bowman said. “When I’m really dedicated to something I want to keep doing it. When I was younger, seeing my dad go up there all the time, I said ‘that’s what I wanted to do.’ And for some reason, I’ve never stopped wanting to do it.”

Bowman said she first started playing when she was 5. She would follow her father, Blair, from the ninth hole where they lived up to the range, where she would watch in awe. Bowman decided then that she wanted to emulate everything he could do.

When she turned 7, Bowman’s dad set her up with golf lessons and her sister with tennis lessons.

To say Bowman became obsessed would be like saying a bee enjoys making honey.

“I remember driving home after getting her (Blakeley) from tennis and my mom telling me I couldn’t go to the golf course and I just started crying,” Bowman said. “I was so mad. I was probably 8 at the time. That was where all my friends were.”

When she turned 9 she connected with coach Chuck Scoggins and her career began to really take off. She didn’t realize at the time how good she really was, but that ignorance wouldn’t last long.

Bowman has 37 medals in her room from tournaments. In 2006, she won her first. She was playing on the Atlanta Junior Golf Tournament in the 7-18 age division.

She finished second at the Bobby Jones event with a 50 and won at a course called the Hooch with a score in the high 40s. And remember, she wasn’t even 10 yet.

“My second year or so I realized I was playing against girls that were five years older and I was beating them and my confidence was going through the roof,” she said.

Bowman attended the U.S. Kids Golf National Camp that summer and has been on the rise ever since.

Bowman is currently ranked 614th in the world and 66th in Florida. In her age group, she’s No. 8.

That made her arrival at Bartram a very anticipated one for coach Jen Harman.

Harman knew Bowman by name before she arrived. And by sight, she was even more impressive.

“You only had to watch her for five minutes to see how good she was,” Harman said. “If you watch her swing it’s flawless. It’s just pretty. I don’t say a word to her. When she messes up, she knows what she did.”

Bowman stands at maybe 5-foot-3, and would weigh more than 100 pounds if you put rocks in her pockets.

That’s why her skills left Harman shaking her head. Bowman can smash drives 230 yards down the fairway.

“It’s so funny because she’s this tiny girl and she just gets up and there and crushes it,” Harman said.

“She outdrives much bigger, older girls all the time and you can tell they look at her and just think ‘what, how did she do that?’”

Bowman, surprisingly, didn’t get off to a great start with the team. She said that she wasn’t able to practice every day like she was used to since she didn’t know where to go.

Most of Bowman’s time was spent dealing with school and trying to balance aspects of her life she never had to deal with before.

“She wasn’t getting enough practice, which is not something a lot of kids complain about. But with her, you can’t get her off the course.”

Bowman was referred to the Tom Burnett Academy, which plays out of the St. Johns Golf and Country Club off of County Road 210.

The academy is nestled behind the first hole and has become Bowman’s happy second home.

“It was tough before I found the academy,” Bowman said. “I would go up to practice and there would be no one there. It’s not the same as having people around to talk to and have fun with. My golf game was falling apart.”

It didn’t take long for her to find her swing and her comfort zone. Things at school picked up as well.

Although she claims to be quiet at first, Bowman made friends quickly, including one who lived on her same street. She fit in like a puzzle piece with the team.

Her game followed. Bowman was third at regionals with a 78 and qualified as an individual for the Class 2A state tournament.

There she had the best finish of any county golfer, carding a 13-over-par 157 at the Mission Inn Resort and Club in Howey-in-the-Hills and tied for 11th overall.

Aside from the fact she was a freshman, it was even more impressive given that she shot an 82 on the opening day. She rebounded with a 75.

To put things in perspective, the county’s next best finisher, Ponte Vedra’s Baylee Vigil, was 19 strokes behind and tied for 50th.

“Only one time, when my coach in Atlanta told me to put away my clubs for a month, has anyone ever asked me to stop playing,” Bowman said.

“I said no way. This is what I love doing more than anything else in the world and I can’t imagine doing anything else.”